


sun

by lethandralis



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: M/M, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, also ao3 tagging is confusing what is the difference between an ampersand and a slash, if you were looking for something hot this is not the fic you wanted i'm very sorry, love is a learning process and finn is just starting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-17
Updated: 2016-01-17
Packaged: 2018-05-13 23:35:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5721259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lethandralis/pseuds/lethandralis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>and through that mist i see the shape of you</i>
  <br/>
  <i>and i know, i know that i'm in love with you</i>
  <br/>
  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKyK1Mme9Sc">[ x ]</a>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	sun

Poe has been in love two, maybe three times in his life. (More if he's drunk.) It's never quite worked out in the long-term, though. It's always a conflict of interest, or someone's just gotta move halfway across the galaxy. "It's not you, Poe, it's me. I'm sorry." It is always just them, always not him.  
  
Finn has never been in love. He's pretty sure of that, but to be honest, "the complex feelings associated with love" wasn't a topic high on the teaching agenda in the First Order. There is not love in the First Order. Respect, sure, and admiration sometimes, and obedience. But not love.  
  
Once he's out, Finn discovers loving things like a toddler discovers swearing: over-enthusiastically, and without any finesse. In the Order they teach that love is a weakness, that empathy is a defect.

So, Finn loves everything he can get his hands on. He loves Rey, loves the way she fights and the way she sometimes nibbles on the flowers that grow around the Resistance base. He loves Han, even in death, cantankerous and sour as he was. He loves BB-8, even if he can't understand their chirps and beeps.  
  
And he loves Poe.  
  
This feels like firm, solid fact to Finn, the sort of undeniably true thing one might use to steady their mind when disoriented. He loves Poe, who is kind and gentle, who could very well be cocky and boasting but isn’t. He loves his lip-biting habit and the way that he fusses with his hair after he’s removed his helmet.

And it doesn't bother him, really, even though it does strike him as odd that Poe turns flaming red when Finn says it out loud for the first time.  
  
"I. Oh. I... What brought this up, Buddy?" Poe asks, polishing a scuff out of BB-8's casing.  
  
"I love you, that's all. Just thought I should say so." Nonchalant. Like talking about the weather. "That a problem?"  
  
"No! No, definitely not, it's just... People don't usually just up and say shit like that, you know? Just caught me off guard is all."  
  
Poe returns to his work, and Finn, confused, goes off someplace else because he feels like he ought to.

 

* * *

  
  
Three days pass. Finn asks Rey what she thinks of Poe’s reaction, and she gives him a confused look. “Is there something you haven’t told me?”

“No? I don’t think so?”

“Well, from the looks of it, you and Poe are dating!”

Finn spends thirty seconds in stunned silence before he splutters out a reply. “I don’t… We’re not… I never… We’re _not dating_. What in the world gave you that idea?”

She shrugs. “You told him you _love_ him, Finn. I know you say it to everyone, but you two…”

“Us two _what_?” His voice pitches up more than he intends.

“Oh, come on, it’s obvious. Jessika and I have a betting pool going. Half the base is talking about the hottest new couple; the hot-shot pilot and the escaped Stormtrooper.”

It takes Finn two minutes of silent consideration before he can respond. “I… I would be lying to you if I said I hadn’t thought about it, and I don’t really like lying. But. We’re not dating. Unless I managed to not pick up on the fact that we might be dating, which, knowing me, could happen.”

Rey fixes him with a hard, questioning look. “Are you in love with him, Finn?”

“Is that supposed to be different from loving him?” He asks, and if it wasn’t for his tone Rey would think he’s joking.

“Yes,” she says. “Yes it is. Loving someone is… I don’t know. It’s simple, sort of. In comparison, it’s simple. People love foods, or places, or sounds. But being in love is like dating, sometimes. Being in love is deciding that you want to spend your life with someone, or at least most of it. You can’t… I don’t think you can really be in love with a thing, or a place, in the same way that you can be in love with a person.” She shrugs. “I think so, anyway. You’re probably better off asking someone else.”

Finn’s face is now uncomfortably warm. “And what does this have to do with Poe?”

“I think Poe thinks you mean the ‘in love’ sort of meaning, while you mean the ‘love’ sort of meaning.”

There is an extended, silent pause while the two of them consider this.

“Unless you don’t.”

Politely, Finn thanks Rey for her time and her advice, and excuses himself to go think.

 

* * *

 

Finn has _probably_ never been in love, but he doesn’t have any operating frame of reference to understand what being in love would be like. Which is understandable, considering his circumstances; there are no folk stories where he was raised, no long and epic tales of love’s triumph over all, no romance or love or caring of any kind he can speak of. There is training, and there are chores, and there is war, and there is death.

He has thought about dating Poe before. He knows what this would be like, in a vague, nebulous sort of way; he understands that dating involves a lot more touching and time spent together, and kissing, which fascinates him in the same way that impossibly intricate machinery fascinates Rey.

But he doesn’t know, exactly, how one goes about dating, or how to start dating someone, or what the prerequisites for dating are. How long do you have to know someone to date them? Do you have to love them? How much?

The walls of his quarters are all a dull, dingy grey, and staring at the swirls of amateur brushstrokes in the paint just makes his head hurt.

There is someone here who must know the answer to this.

 

* * *

 

“What can I do for you, Buddy?” asks Poe, looking disheveled, shirt crooked. Night is beginning to fall outside the base.

“Hey, can I come in?” replies Finn, his stomach feeling odd.

“Sure. Make yourself at home.”

Poe’s quarters are unkempt. A sock hangs from the windowsill. Finn feels a compelling need to straighten up the bed before he sits on it, but he resists the urge. BB-8 chirps something and Poe nods at them.

“You feelin’ alright, Finn? You look a little off.” Poe offers a glass of water to Finn, is politely declined.

“Yeah, I… I’ve just been thinking. About the other day, you know, in the lounge.”

“Oh.”

“Listen, I’m sorry if I made you mad or something. With what I said. I didn’t mean to, I just… wanted to say.”

Poe laughs, all breath and very little sound, sits down on the opposite end of the bed. “No, it’s alright, I’m not mad. It’s just that… _that’s_ not something most folks just up and say without any sort of warning or preamble, you know? Not for the first time, anyway.”

Finn screws up his face in consideration. “I guess. I don’t know. I’m not good at this! I can shoot anything, but I don’t know how you’re supposed to tell people you love them. I don’t know how that works.”

“I know. I’m sorry. Can I help at all?” There’s something almost mournful in Poe’s tone, as if he’s listening to Finn recount the death of a loved one.

“Do you know what it’s like to be in love?”

The question hangs in the air for a moment as Poe stares wide-eyed at his knees. “Uh.”

“I asked Rey about it this morning and she asked me if I was in love and I don’t know. I don’t think I would know the feeling if I had it.”

Poe puts his hands up. “Wait, wait. Hold on. You asked Rey about what, exactly?”

“About the other day, and why you got so weird, and where I screwed up, and what love is, exactly. Lots of things. It was a complicated conversation.”

There is a look in Poe’s eyes that shows that the gears in his head are beginning to mesh together. Just barely beginning. “And she asked you if you were in love because…”

“Because she said that people don’t usually don’t up and say ‘I love you’ to people they’re not in love with? I guess? Which is something I didn’t know, but I don’t know _anything_ about love.”

“Right. And you said…?”

Finn takes a breath, steadies himself like he’s about to take a shot with only one round left in the chamber. “I told her that I don’t know. We don’t… In the Order, they don’t tell us what love is supposed to be like, and we’re not supposed to talk about it; love and caring and empathy are all weaknesses, see, and they’re not helpful in the agenda. So I don’t know how to know because I don’t know what I’m looking for to begin with.” He sighs. The shot landed.

“Well,” begins Poe, before pausing. His foot is tapping rapidly against the cold concrete floor, a staccato sort of beat. “I gotta admit, Finn, this isn’t the sort of question I get asked often. But. If you wanna know…” Finn nods, gesturing for him to continue. “I _have_ been in love before, and it’s different every time. I can’t really say that there’s some sort of big experience that unites everyone who’s been in love or some shit, because that’s not true, but. I think it’s mostly just about being in awe, I guess. It’s like, you look at someone and you’re just amazed by them, every little inch is somethin’ amazing to you, even if they hate it. And you just wanna see all of it, and learn everything you can about them. I guess.”

“Oh,” replies Finn. “Well I feel that way about lots of people. Isn’t that normal?”

“Well, yeah, good point, but it’s… deeper than usual. It’s more than usual. It’s the kinda thing where most mornings you wake up thinking about someone, and it lingers all day long, even if you’re busy all day and you never see them. And then, sometimes, when you do see them, it’s this sorta _rush,_ adrenaline and nerves and curiosity all at once. And it blocks everything else out. It’s the most distracting thing I know.”

Finn considers this, considers the way he’s pulled on that brown leather jacket every day he’s been able to since Jakku, considers the way he finds himself drawn to Poe’s quarters, clear across the base. How many times has he wondered whether or not he’d be good for Poe? How much time has he spent daydreaming?

And then Poe turns and faces him for the first time since he sat down, and he asks “So, what do you think, Finn?”

Finn laughs, quiet, staring at his hands interlocked between his knees. “I think I’ve got a lot to think about. Y’know, I’ve never… dated anyone or anything. Haven’t even tried. It wasn’t an option in the Order if you wanted to stay out of reeducation. And for a long time I just sort of stopped thinking about it, because it was easier.”

“I can understand that.” Finn notices that Poe is at least a foot closer to him now, and a jolt shoots through his spine.

“And it’s been weird, getting out, and staying out, because I can do so many things now that I’ve never been able to do. I can talk to people and touch them and eat whatever I like and make friends – I kinda had friends in the Order, but not like now – and… I can’t even begin to describe it. Sometimes it makes me feel dizzy.

“But it’s better than I ever could’ve imagined, really. And sometimes I feel like I’ve gotta run around and thank everyone, because I couldn’t have gotten here without so many people. I couldn’t’ve gotten here without you.”

Poe shrugs. “I could say the same about you.”

Finn punches his shoulder, just barely. “Blah, blah, you did all the flying." He laughs, a little louder than he should, a barking sort of sound. "Honestly, though, sometimes lately I just sit back and I think about what’s happened these past three months, and I can’t even believe it. Like, sure, I’ve got this giant scar on my back, and we’re at war, but I got to meet some incredible people, and I got this great jacket out of it.” He pulls at a lapel for emphasis.

“And I think…” he continues, pace slowing down considerably. “I think it would be wrong to not get some sort of love out of that, you know? But with you it feels different. Not… better, or more powerful, necessarily, but different.” Finn notices that, for some amount of time, Poe has been gnawing on the inside of his bottom lip.

“And, okay, full disclosure: I’ve thought about it. I don’t have a good understanding of how dating works, but I’ve thought about it. With you, I mean. I’ve thought about it… sort of a lot. And it feels good. A different kind of good than anything I’ve ever had. But I don’t… I don’t know if I can be _enough_ for you. I guess.”

Poe nods several times, letting out a breath that sounds like he’s been holding it in for quite some time.

“So what do you think?” says Finn, hanging just a bit on _you_ , unsure if he actually wants to know what the other thinks.

“Well. I think that nothin’ I ever do is gonna be the same since I met you. Some mornings I wake up and I just lay here because I can’t stop thinkin’ about you and it crowds out everything else. I remember… when you were still in the infirmary, right after Starkiller, I skipped all my training and half my meals just to sit there by your bed and watch you sleep. I was worried sick. The doctor almost put me in a bed next to you because I was in such rough shape. And then you _woke up_ and it was like…” he breathes out a stuttering sort of sigh, combing his fingers through the hair on the back of his head. “It was like nothin’ I’d ever felt before. And sometimes I look at you and I just have to stop for a minute because my whole brain just shuts down. And, I dunno, maybe I’m just dumb or tired, or maybe all this action lately is just getting to me. But… it would be good to know, one way or another. So I can start sleepin’ at night.”

“You know that I’ve never done anything like this before, right?”

“Yeah.”

Finn chuckles. “You’re awfully brave.”

Poe puffs out his chest a little, straightens his back. “I like to think so, yes.”

There is mutual laughter, and then silence, as the two of them consider the cards that have been laid on the table. The sun has now long since set.

Poe is the first to break the silence. “So. Do you want to do this? We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, which includes _anything_. You get to set the boundaries and the pace here, and if that means that I take my sappy bullshit and stuff it, so be it.”

Finn outright grins. “And what if I like the sappy bullshit?”

“Then be advised that I am fucking full of it, and it is available whenever you like, as often as you like.”

“I’ll take you on that.”

Poe’s jaw drops and hangs there for a solid ten seconds. “Excuse me for a moment,” he says, putting a finger up, before hauling up BB-8 (who had, this whole time, been sitting by the side of the bed and watching their exchange intently) and spinning them around, laughing. Finn just watches, quiet, dazzled, beaming. BB-8 beeps an excited crescendo before being set down, very gently.

“Alright, anyway, where were we, babe?”

 

* * *

 

Poe has been in love three times in his life. (More if he’s drunk, which he isn’t.) One of those times is right now, sprawled out on the floor of his quarters, Finn curled under his arm and draped over his chest. It may not work out; there is, after all, nothing certain about their futures, separate or together. But that is alright. For now, there is the floor, and the pillows they have managed to scavenge from each of their quarters, and BB-8 whirring softly in their charging dock. And there is Finn, and there is Poe, and the space (or lack thereof) between them.

**Author's Note:**

> HEY this is the first fic i've posted in at least four years or something! whoah! also this is my first foray into star wars fandom in general.  
> to all the cool folks who helped encourage me to get back into writing: thank you. i love you.  
> (also, about the betting pool rey mentions: leia wins all the money. obviously.)


End file.
